The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay - Couverture souple

Gillies writes magnificently on everything she touches. -- Sunday Times

A delicate depiction of life, love and possibly madness. Moving and surprising. -- Daily Express, Pick of the Paperbacks

An intelligent, thoughtful, grown-up romance about second chances and the complications of relationships. -- Sunday Herald, Glasgow

Funny, wise and not to be missed. Good Housekeeping

Praise for The White Lie:

A gripping exploration of the stories families tell about themselves, myths sometimes more potent than the truth. -- Financial Times

Gillies excels in her portrait of a landscape that consumes the merely human; eats it for lunch, as it were, and has slowly, over many generations, created a family in its own image. -- Helen Dunmore, The Times

The prose is elegant and beautiful, and Gillies has a skill for creating both character and a sense of place... I couldn t put The White Lie down. -- For Books' Sake

The White Lie is a page-turner...It is also, finally, very moving. --Francine Stock, The Guardian

Gillies excels both at describing the landscape and at delineating those subcutaneous secrets and shared assumptions that bind families together. -- Literary Review A wonderfully compelling portrait of a family haunted by secrets and lies...pitch perfect on the chilling, devastating consequences of guilt. -- Sally Brampton

Gillies' beautifully crafted debut combines page-turning aplomb with psychological insight... She is a tantalising story-teller, dropping in clues, vertiginous surprises and unexpected revelations. -- Marie Claire We have a major new talent in our midst. --Daily Express

There's an echo of Virginia Woolf that lifts Gillies' work above the average family drama... This is an unusual, unsettling, often lovely story that plumbs the depths of what family means. --The Scotsman

Gillies excels both at describing the landscape and at delineating those subcutaneous secrets and shared assumptions that bind families together. -- Literary Review A wonderfully compelling portrait of a family haunted by secrets and lies...pitch perfect on the chilling, devastating consequences of guilt. -- Sally Brampton

Gillies' beautifully crafted debut combines page-turning aplomb with psychological insight... She is a tantalising story-teller, dropping in clues, vertiginous surprises and unexpected revelations. -- Marie Claire There's an echo of Virginia Woolf that lifts Gillies' work above the average family drama... This is an unusual, unsettling, often lovely story that plumbs the depths of what family means. --The Scotsman

Their main courses arrived, and Luca ordered more wine, and they ate and talked about other things. Nina steered the conversation elsewhere, into their respective trips and what they’d seen and eaten. But when the plates were taken, Luca reverted. 

“Promise me one thing. If ever you decide you need a divorce, you think of me first.” He thought he saw in her eyes that she took him seriously. What else could it be, that strange intense look in them? He went on, “But you’re right, of course you’re right. Our marriage is only perfect because it never happened. We haven’t had to deal with dishwashers and bills and recycling and dull sex.” 

“Dull, is it? That’s a shame.” The back of her neck felt as if it was seizing up.

“Francesca lost interest years ago. Even before she got ill. The cancer has been a big sex drought, and now she’s losing interest in me in general, I think.” 

“Oh I see, you’re in need of a cinq à sept.” It wasn’t possible to smile. “On the way home from the office.” 

“I think the French are an enlightened nation. Shall we say five o’clock tomorrow? But I’m getting on a bit. I may not need two hours.” 

She hid her disappointment in him in checking her phone. “A quickie on the way home. Lovely.” 

“It’s these little adjustments in life that make it tolerable.”

“I’m glad I know that you’re joking.” 

Luca could have joined her there. It might still all have been salvageable but instead he said, “We should get another bottle.”